TLTR
AIBU I am not a teachable moment, just because I am in a wheelchair.
LONG VERSION
I was in a shoe shop with my child today. A mother with a 3yo was sat across from us. I see them talking and the mother is repeatedly telling her young child to walk over to me.Saying to her "Go ask her."
This makes me very uncomfortable and I know what is going to happen next.
Eventually the young child walks over and asks why I am in a wheelchair. I smile nicely and tell the little girl in a quiet voice, "I just got sick". The girl returns to the mother.
The mother shouts back over to me across the room, what did you tell my daughter? I repeated my answer. The entitled mother replies Is that all the answer I am going to get?
Yes, I said.
She started muttering about how I should want to talk to her daughter and tell her about my chair. She really thought I would be honoured to explain my personal medical details in the middle of a shop!
I replied. No, I am here shoe shopping with my daughter. Luckily the shoes arrived at that moment and my daughter and me left the shop.
I left feeling very upset and being asked to explain my existence, when all I wanted was to pick up school shoes with my child.
Taking into account the following...
- Parents should answer their kids questions themselves.
Q.Mummy, why is that lady in a wheelchair?
A. That lady's legs probably don't work as well as yours or she might be sick.
- Think about how rude and potentially upsetting it is to ask for a strangers medical information or for details of a tragic accident. Which is what is actually being asked for.
- Consider how asking me questions in public affect my children, who hear how people talk to me. One of my children is already frightened I will die soon. Because of all the hospital visits, all my falls, my pain and getting the wheelchair. She has nightmares and clings to me. Every nosey person asking me questions upsets her. Luckily I wasn't with that particular child today.
- What is the point of the question? What would you do with the answer, if I explained all my personal medical information to you? Absolutely nothing, so you are interrupting my life for no reason. Upsetting me just to entertain your curiosity.
- For this entitled mother it was a single short conversation, probably already forgotten.
For me it is every day, where ever I go, whatever I do. I get looks, questions and/or actions about my wheelchair. And I have decades of this nonsense ahead of me.
Sigh. I am just a person. My chair is just a fancier version of crutches. I am just me.
AIBU to live my life without being constantly asked to be a teachable moment?
Ps. I am always polite to the kids but I am starting to think a more sweary response might be appropriate for the constant intrusive questions from adults. Surely they should know better?